


The Sky Is Far Away

by Adelheid_Desgoffe_Taxis



Series: Zubrowka: A World Inside Out [1]
Category: The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-05
Updated: 2014-06-05
Packaged: 2018-02-03 12:23:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1744505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adelheid_Desgoffe_Taxis/pseuds/Adelheid_Desgoffe_Taxis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last moments in the life of J. G. Jopling, Esq.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sky Is Far Away

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Comment: This was written a couple of months ago, because JG Jopling, strangely enough, proved to be my favorite TGBH character (along with Count Dmitri, actually). This will be, I dare hope, a small part of a much larger work devoted to these and other characters – which is currently under way.  
> P. S. I’m not a native English speaker, so forgive any possible mistakes.

…He came to his senses slowly, painfully, as if he had been plodding through a thick treacherous marsh, and the first thing he became aware of was the heavy dark-grey mountain sky hung with menacing snow clouds, unbelievably far above him. Then, almost simultaneously, came the ringing, excruciating pain in the back of his head, and with that he felt the coppery taste of blood which had somehow filled his mouth. He must have struck his head against a lonely stone when plummeting from the cliff, he reasoned dazedly. He tried to move his head a little, but the accompanying pain was so unbearable that he – a harsh, sullen man who rarely made any sound at all – whimpered involuntarily through clenched teeth like a wounded dog.

 

He had absolutely no idea how much time had passed since that dirty lobby boy had pushed him off the cliff. His mind, which had always been sharp and calculating, now became muddy, disoriented. The only thing he knew was that he was terribly thirsty. He unclasped the breast pocket on his leather coat, which got badly torn by the sharp rocks of the ravine, and grasped desperately the small cut-glass flask inside. With his weak, stiff, trembling fingers he unscrewed the lid and greedily gulped down the remaining whiskey, several amber-colored drops falling on the snow below. All his life long he had decidedly avoided drinking too much alcohol of any kind, but now he hoped that some strong liquor would help him return a little strength to try and get moving.

 

It was only then that he realized that both of his legs must have been broken. With such bad injuries, he would be unable to get out of here, out of this deep, pristine-white snow at the foot of the ill-fated cliff, and there were no people in the immediate vicinity to accidentally discover him. He lowered his blood-covered head on the snow bed and breathed shallowly, his face wet with tears – only now did he notice, with shame and despair, that he was quietly crying with pain. The empty flask, which had somehow remained intact despite the damages to his body and clothes, slipped from his weakening hand.

 

The burning liquid gave him some warmth, and the injured man lay in the cold mountain snow, under these endless, leaden-colored skies. The perspective of getting frostbitten didn’t frighten him anymore. He was only awaiting the exhausting pain in his head and legs to recede, to leave him alone, though at the same time he knew for sure that of course it wouldn’t be so.

 

…He had come from Southern Canada, from a small town named London, near the fabled Great Lakes, and then moved to the USA. During the years of the Depression, he helped several US bandits and cops alike to get rid of their various rivals and enemies. Though he never managed to create a family of his own and stayed alone at all times, he became a feared and respected man in certain circles, and it suited him just fine. But once he had crossed the road of a very powerful and dangerous mafia boss, he had to leave America and come to the tiny Central European state of Zubrowka, which hardly any American had ever heard about. Here he was very lucky to start working for several people of great influence, especially Count Desgoffe-und-Taxis himself, who greatly admired his knowledge and experience, and since then he had served his new patron diligently.

 

It was here, in Zubrowka, with its seemingly noble and peaceful, but in reality deceitful and avaricious inhabitants, that he acquired new taste for torture and murder, which was always smoldering deep inside him. He murdered that slippery lying cat-lover Vilmos Kovács smartly and cold-heartedly and, with a strange devilish glee he hadn’t been aware he possessed, stuffed his body into a Kunstmuseum shrine, like an ancient Egyptian pharaoh, for the terrified orderlies to discover. He then beheaded that hapless chicken of a woman, Odette X., right in her squalid apartment in the poorest part of Lutz, and would have disposed in the same fashion of another one, Agatha, that nuisance of a girl from the local bakery. Too bad that the two of them were just too plain for his tastes to use them in a more intimate way before killing… Finally, he brilliantly managed to off that lowly coward of a butler Serge X., the late washerwoman’s brother, in the least possible place – the confessional of a well-guarded mountain cloister. He would have also sent that runaway ex-concierge Gustave H. to his death had he himself not been pushed into the ravine. And for all these deeds, he felt no remorse. These people were his gracious employer’s enemies who cheated and betrayed him – therefore, they were his enemies, too, and he was glad to be of some use to the man who was so good to him in his time of need. All in all, he had murdered dozens of people throughout his bloody career, and he had always been perversely proud of himself. Before now. Before his career was going to come to an end on the bottom of a snow-covered mountain chasm.

 

Through the whirlpool of darkness which was slowly and methodically shrouding his blood-filled eyes, he managed to glance one last time at the thick, hard, steely, unforgiving sky far above the ground, and his murky gaze filled with sorrowful longing. Because he had very rarely looked at the skies before, and now it was the last chance for him to see it. Because for him, the sky here, in the highest reaches of Zubrowkian Alps, wasn’t any lower than anywhere else, - on the contrary, it was much, much higher in these remaining minutes of his wretched life. Because all he could hope for from now on was not the noble serenity of the divine heavens, but the unending torture of the hellish fires. A torture far superior to the ones to which he subjected his numerous victims.

 

He had long ago rejected his real name and, in return, had named himself Private Inquiry Agent J. G. Jopling, Esquire. But now he knew very well that all he had ever been was just a sadistic murderous brute. He had gaily and willingly chosen such a life himself; and now, at last, came the time to pay for this choice. If there had ever been a second chance for him, it was long gone. In any case, he undoubtedly deserved the fate which was eagerly awaiting him. Because for him, the eternal sky became very, very far away.

 

With that thought in his dying mind, Mister Jopling resigned to his fate and closed his deep-sunken eyes for the very last time.


End file.
